Clarissa Harlowe, or The History of a Young Lady

By Samuel Richardson

Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady tells the tragic story of a heroine whose quest for virtue is continually thwarted by her family, and is one of the longest novels in the English language. Clarissa Harlowe is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Their original plan was to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowes into the possession of Clarissa’s brother James Harlowe, whose wealth and political power will lead to his being granted a title.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Sep 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633557093

Samuel Richardson

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English writer and printer. Born the son of a carpenter, Richardson received a limited education before becoming a printer’s apprentice. He established his own shop in 1719 and received his first major contract in 1723, printing a bi-weekly Jacobite newspaper which was soon censored. Having married in 1721, Richardson and his wife Martha Wilde suffered the loss of several sons before Martha succumbed to illness in 1732. Devastated, Richardson eventually remarried and focused on his career, earning a contract with the House of Commons in 1733 and hiring several apprentices to assist him at his shop. During this time, Richardson turned to fiction, publishing his first novel, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded in 1740, a work now considered the first modern novel. Throughout the remainder of his career, he published two more epistolary novels—Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753)—while continuing his work as a prominent and successful printer. He published and befriended many of the leading writers of his time, including Daniel Defoe, Sarah Fielding, and Samuel Johnson.

Reviews for Clarissa Harlowe, or The History of a Young Lady

[kidsisyphus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this thing in its epistolary-entirety over the summer before learning that only sections of it were assigned. I think I got a bit more out of it than my classmates and was impressed by how the character of Lovelace overpowered Richardson.

[souloftherose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

More than any other book I write about, I feel in no way qualified to give an opinion on Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. Where do I start? Firstly, this is a long novel. The Penguin Classics edition is 1,499 pages long. The font is very small and the pages are quite large. This reproduces Richardson's original version of Clarissa as first published in several volumes in 1747 and 1748. Richardson seemed to revise this original text quite heavily and some later editions have another 200 pages added. I think the free ebook versions use the longer, later texts but I'm not sure.Secondly, if you decide to read Clarissa you'll need to get rid of all our 21st century and 20th century ideas about what a novel is or should be. This book is long and, most of the time, nothing happens. Even when something does happen, you don't get to read about it happening: Clarissa is an epistolary novel (written in the form of letters) so you only get to read about events through the characters' letters after they've happened.Thirdly, do not attempt the Pearl rule* (or, if you do, you'll need to increase the Pearl rule by at least a factor of 10). I found it took me quite a long time to adapt to the style of writing and the pace and I struggled most in the first 500 pages. I found it really started to get going somewhere around the 700 page mark and the last 500 pages flew by. Perhaps the best thing to do is to quote Samuel Johnson who said Clarissa was 'the first book in the world for the knowledge it displays of the human heart'. With all the books published in the 250+ years since Clarissa was first brought out I can see there could be some uncertainty about Clarissa still being the first book but I would definitely argue for it being in the top ten. The characters are not all pleasant, but they are all real and they all have different voices and styles in the letters they write. I think that must be difficult enough to do in what we think of as a normal length novel, surely it must be harder when you have to sustain this across almost 1,500 pages?Finally, I should note that Clarissa is not going to be a book for everyone (and that's ok). It's long and not much happens. Clarissa herself spends most of the novel in various unpleasant situations and that's difficult to read about - most of my struggles at the beginning of the novel were because it felt very emotionally claustrophobic. It is often described as boring and there is justification for that. I disagree (quite strongly I think) but I can understand why people find it boring. To quote Samuel Johnson again, 'if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself'. That's (thankfully) a bit of an exaggeration but there was a lot of frustration expressed on the group read thread.I felt rather uncertain about rating Clarissa. In the end I gave it 5 stars because it's so memorable - I'm sure the book and the characters will stay with me for a long time and also because on finishing it, I found myself thinking that this would really reward rereading (not going to happen soon though) and it's rare that I think that on finishing a book. I would definitely say I enjoyed my experience of reading Clarissa, although there were points when I struggled. I'm pleased and sad to have finished reading it and I don't think there's higher praise to give a novel than to say I felt sad to have no more left to read. Recommended, with caution.*The Pearl rule, courtesy of Nancy Pearl, says "If you still don't like a book after slogging through the first 50 pages, set it aside. If you're more than 50 years old, subtract your age from 100 and only grant it that many pages."

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Clarissa as part of the 75ers group read of the novel for 2012, and mostly kept to the plan of just reading each day's letters on that day (thus stretching the reading out pretty much over the course of the year). But i got a bit impatient at the end, and finished the last ninety pages or so at one go (so, from 15 September onward). That said, I'm glad I read the book this way, since I am fairly certain I wouldn't have made it very far had I just plunged in and tried to read it straight through.The plot is simple: virtuous young woman's family tries to force her into marriage with a most unpleasant chap; she rebels and gets suckered into running off with libertine Lovelace, whose main gain is seduction. That accomplished, Clarissa declines and ultimately dies. The story is told through letters, mainly but not exclusively between Clarissa and her friend Anna Howe and Lovelace and his friend John Belford. Not a whole lot happens for incredibly long stretches of time: months and hundreds of pages pass with Clarissa shut up in her room trying to get her family to quit trying to marry her off against her will, and then hundreds more pages as she lingers at death's door. Instances of anything much actually happening are few and far between. But, as Richardson points out in a postscript, these long stretches "are the foundation of the whole ... The letters and conversations, where the story makes the slowest progress, are presumed to be characteristic. They give occasion likewise to suggest many interesting personalities, in which a good deal of the instruction essential to a work of this nature is conveyed."Reading it as I did, a bit at a time, does much, as Richardson suggests, to "preserve and maintain that air of probability, which is necessary to be maintained in a story designed to represent real life; and which is rendered extremely busy and active by the plots and contrivances formed and carried on by one of the principal characters." If you do tackle it, I'd recommend trying it this way.It's interesting to watch some of the characters evolve over the course of the book through their letters, and the view of English society at the time is fascinating. It's certainly no easy slog to get through, though.

[janwillemnoldus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

French translation, much rewritten and thus sometimes practically a creation by Jules Janin

[labwriter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read the abridged version of this book in a literature class--for my English lit degree. I enjoyed the book. I find the reviews here to be hilarious. I liked the abridged version so much, that I bought the version with EVERY WORD that Richardson wrote. I haven't read it yet--I'm saving it for my old age, when I'm not able to drive. I'm really, really hoping that I don't go blind with macular degeneration when I'm in my 80s. If I don't, I'm sure I'll get this book read.

[literarysarah · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Dull dull dull. Knowing more or less how the story ends, I found that I couldn't wait for horrible things to happen to the preening, self-righteous Clarissa. Apart from the ghastly characters, the story also suffers from the indulgence of self-publishing. Richardson really could have used an editor to trim the book by at least half.

[beavermeyer · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I read the abridged version, and even that was too long for me. A long, epsitlary borefest with loathesome characters that ought to be lashed. I hated this book with a fiery passion. Just seeing this book makes me grit my teeth.

[puabi_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somewhat claustrophobic. Try reading it in one sitting. (that was a joke) To be honest I haven't finished it yet, but I am looking to someday. I don't think it's as bad as the other reader said. Richardson's intent seems to be to immerse you in the emotional world of the story, and it works.

[wenestvedt_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reportedly the longest fiction book in English, it's certainly among the heavist I own. Purchased for a course at Tufts on the 18th Century English Novel -- which was really a great class -- I found reading this book to be so dull that I could skip tens of pages at time and seemingly not advance a bit. I believe I wrote a long paper on casuistry (the professor's suggestion) based on this book, though I have no recollection of what I said, nor even what the word means. I get sleepy just looking at it, and intend to use it with my children as an object lesson in the need to edit onesself.